


Ferry Service

by gimmejimmy



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Humor, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:27:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22227871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gimmejimmy/pseuds/gimmejimmy
Summary: At the River Styx, Mike can't pay the toll.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 23
Collections: Blue Christmeth 2019





	Ferry Service

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JenniferNapier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferNapier/gifts).



The night Mike is killed, Todd buries what’s left of his body not too far from the river.

Mike watches this kneeling at the water as his own immoble tombstone. Other, perfunctory sketches of scenes unfold: Snowfall, and Mike’s terse awareness of it melting; at least a year must've been spent making sure he can still remember Kaylee’s face; a bunch of punks setting up a campfire somewhere that it could hurt someone, followed by the burning smell of spice and kids screaming. _He told them so._

At the River Styx, everything that felt close while he was alive is now separated by a dense film that you can feel more than see. Mike processes the next few years through that film, sitting vigil. He wouldn't exactly call it all peaceful, but even this is too good for him given what he’s earned, until Charon rows through in his Painted Ladies suit and tie.

"You're here late."

"Logjam! Nothing in life is certain except for death and traffic. You know, that, and how nothing in life comes free." Saul has to use one of the ores as leverage to climb out of the rowboat, and even then the boat almost slips out from under him. "I’m assuming you have something for me?”

“Even if I did, I intend to serve my sentence without parole.”

"I saw this coming. No offense, but a man like you would not exactly be overwhelmed with adoring family members, weeping in sorrow as they place an obol under your tongue. However, bear in mind that I can offer you phone-a-friend privileges." 

"How do you mean?"

"I noticed our first associate, the fast food enterpriser, wandering the earth on my way here. I know for a fact that a man as smart as he would have a reserve for a situation like this."

It's true. Gus doesn't have any family that he knows of who'd bury him with one, but if any of them would be proactive enough to keep an obol stitched in their suit jacket, it would be Fring. He just can't see him not using it at the pearly gates without good reason.

"Hey, the man died rich. I say since you were unduly robbed your hazard pay, the least he could do is toss you a penny."

"I don't know if you're aware of the state of my body, but it's no catholic burial I've ever seen. I'm thinking even getting an obol won't make up the difference."

"Way to plead your case to your Judge and Jury. Who would, mind you, know the legalese of what constitutes a real burial better than you. I'm just trying to offer you a bargain, as the man who promised he’d have your back when you needed it."

"A hundred years? Sounds like it’s already a small price to pay to me."

"Um, I think you’re confusing a century for one of its nearest neighbors, ten years? Because I’m telling you, it’s longer than you think, Dad. Longer than you think.” The sentence barely has time to echo before he delivers another spiel, as if reading from a script: “I'll tell you what. Given our prior history, how about I offer you a friends-and-family deal? I'll try for one week negotiate you down from hanging yourself, but that already puts me at risk of being penalized for loitering, so that’s as long as I can give you without getting my ass kicked by management."

“Thanks, but no thanks. I wouldn’t want to hold up the line for anyone else.”

Saul parks himself beside Mike anyway. “What's a few days off between friends, huh?”

"It's your time to waste."

It comes as a surprise, but for the first few days, Saul has the patience to sit with him the entire time. What he lacks is the patience to shut the fuck up while he does it. He can’t keep a single thought in his own head: _when’s the last time you saw anything closely resembling a nap break? … Seriously? You’re really gonna make me wait here for the duration? … humor me: between Walt and Lydia, who do you think snuck in an obol?_ The way they seem to be playing it, they know at least one of them has to get sick of the other first. Either Saul gets bored and leaves early, or Mike's patience is worn thin by the sound of his voice.

“I’ve always taken you for a great outdoors kinda guy, so why you’re wasting away essentially lying prostrate on the floor is beyond me.” Saul shifts the position he’s sitting in. “What do you say about stretching your legs with me? If I kneel like this for too long, my knees are gonna lock up and I’ll probably be stuck here in the gutter with you.”

Mike flexes his jaw. For the next few hours, Saul gives him the illusion of silence, but he can see him chewing on what to say next.

"Did you ever put any thought into what you last meal would be? It's a quintessential high school experience to hotbox yourself with friends and talk about it at least once. I know there needs to have been some rebel in you at one point."

He doesn’t budge. 

"My last meal was a mall pretzel in Omaha. As for the details... I, uh, plead the fifth on the grounds that I may humiliate myself. Worst two dollars I ever spent."

Mike chuckles without meaning to; he wouldn't have imagined him going out any other way.

“He lives! I knew it! The body may be mulch, but the spirit is kicking! But hey, last meals: you must’ve had some liquor stashed away to drink for when you knew your time was near.”

When Mike doesn’t humor him, Saul throws darts at a board, hoping to hit the right answer by chance:

_“Lemme guess: Vodka?”_

_“Martinis.”_

_“Moonshine! Bourbon! Am I getting warmer?”_

Mike’s jaw flexes again when Saul mentions the bourbon. He never stored any for the purpose, but he’d considered it as last drink a few times. He’s not proud of it, but he’s gotten sloppy since he arrived here. 

"Bourbon! I would’ve taken you more for a clear liquor guy, but hey, it’s a classy choice. Then why don’t you let me tempt you to transition into the world beyond, with enough booze to die a second time from liver failure?" 

Mike rolls his eyes. 

"Sorry. Just thought you of all people would get a kick out of some gallows humor right now.”

The conversation fades out, but lilts of background noise fill the empty space until Saul picks up the mantel again.

"You know, if it were me in your shoes, I'd follow the river all the way to Greece and luxuriate in the beaches, even if I’d have to do so from a distance. If nothing else, you've got the people watching and the structures in nature to take in. To sweeten the deal, someone has to leave their drink alone for too long eventually, and I’d be able to invoke finder’s keepers."

“Unless you can walk on water all of a sudden, I can’t see that as an option.”

"I'm just brainstorming! Trying to inspire some chutzpah in you! And I mean, if it fuels you to take my boat down the River Styx and express it against a certain someone you knew, then, well... we'd have a Don't Ask Don't Tell situation on our hands."

Betraying his long-time associate for some scumbag who just wants to hit payday? It’s the stupidest thing Saul’s expected to get away with saying, and Saul knows that, so he doesn’t push. It sounds like the end of the conversation, but it doesn’t punctuate the beginning of eternal silence. Not with Saul Goodman it wouldn’t.

"The summer before I got here, I started a campfire story that got passed around by some 9th graders. I planted the seeds by floating empty bottles of booze down the river. As far as they know, there's a vengeful ghost up north from here whose house worsened a forest fire, aided by the fact he was a drinker with a large collection of corrosive alcohols. They say if you’re camping and you smell smoke at midnight, he’ll get you! Pretty sure they all ganged together to freak out the weird kid by burning some leaves in their campfire. That fake legend was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy."

He can still see the embers from when that whole scene went down near him. Saul, however, must be remembering the embers from his brother’s house.

“Just in case you thought that being here means your entire lived existence is over. Knowing you're still alive in there only encourages me to stoke that zest for life.”

*

Over halfway through his allotted week, Saul takes a field trip for a day and comes back with renewed inspiration. “Okay, I realized my mistake here is that I haven’t been meeting you in your own ballpark, so this time, I’m gonna try taking you down memory lane.”

Saul shows him an instant polaroid of a dot, close enough to them that it’s not sitting on the horizon, but not close enough to be in absolute clarity. “Word association time. What’s the first thing you think of when you see this?”

"I didn't think to take my prescriptions with me. You'll have to tell me what I'm looking at."

"What? You still-- I-- It's a party boat! It’s got blue balloons with red accents. There's probably champagne and bubbles somewhere in there. Use your imagination!" Mike stares at him. "Okay, naming any kinda party would've worked here. Let's just use that imagery as a segue, shall we? The amount of cash little Kaylee Ehrmantraut is gonna see on her 18th birthday is zilch. You were screwed to the point she might as well have been left with negative money. But between the two of us, I’m the only one who can traverse beyond the waters into the land of the living. Kaylee’s gonna see her high school graduation whether she’s a millionaire or not. If you promise we’ll obtain an obol from Gus, I can guarantee you all but a slice of her graduation cake."

Mike's breathing goes ragged, but his face is still.

"Not a favorite? Maybe, uh, maybe that one would've gone over better with you-know-who. How about this: what's your second association?"

With all the blue balloons they've got on there? "The first one that comes to mind? Tying you up with tree bark and leaving you in the river."

"It's a one word answer, not a personal essay. The correct answer is fishing, which should invoke the simple pleasures of fatherly bonding."

The curses that are popping red behind his eyes would give Saul's colorful language a run for its money. "I never mentioned him to you."

"Yeah, but-- look, I wasn't gonna mention this, what with time not healing all wounds and all, but I died after you. A lot of, uh, dirty laundry was aired on various news websites after your sudden disappearance. If you’ve got any unresolved stuff to work out with that, or you want me to pay vigil to them instead of you here, then I ask for only a measly coin in exchange for confessional service. Think of it this way: a hundred years from now you’ll be dragged outta here whether you like it or not, but I’ll still be here as the Sole Survivor of Walter White's reign of terror. I’d be a quasi-living testament to their life! How better to make use of my status as your ex-confidant than bearing witness?"

The ideas coax into clarity images from after Matty died, where he took I'm sorry for your loss as an act of violence. In what world does the mourning parent deserve more sympathy than the dead kid? These people couldn’t even be counted on to know his middle name. A few months after the funeral, not even Stacey could talk about him in public without getting a tight smile and nod, because the expectation was she’d be done mourning by then. It's a vendetta he's taken to his grave, and Goodman caring more about using his family as a bargaining chip than their lived existence is the same shit being spit back at him.

In fifty years, everyone still alive who knew Matty will be dead or forget him -- whichever comes first -- but Mike will still be here, stoking the embers to make up for it. Saul might be here longer given his responsibilities, but he wouldn’t trust a guy who wouldn’t sit down long enough to take a test to remember for long.

"You wanna tell me why it matters so much to you?"

"It matters because as your only surviving council, I'm taking it upon myself to save you from shooting yourself in the foot here. But hey, you're only strapped for time to reconsider, right? Why not piss it away playing Sitting Buddha?" Saul turns away and continues to drop pebbles into the water. He says ‘dropping’ instead of 'skipping', because for the seventh time in this conversation, it sinks to the river floor. "Just-- just let it percolate, would you?"

"No..."

"Seriously? I'm offering you the deal-- nay, the deals of your posthumous lifetime and not one feels useful to you?"

"This isn't about that. You're doing it wrong. Give those here."

Saul palms the last of the pebbles into his hand. There are only three left, and it looks like each were filed down from ovals into sloppy circles. "Where'd these come from?"

"Uh, they're..." Saul digs up his ass for an explanation. "They're counterfeits. Given to me, mind you, by paying customers I assumed I could trust enough not to inspect them too closely. I'm telling you, I already got the lecture of my century for that blunder. I might as well toss them."

It's curious, each for different reasons: the story about the fire, and the forgeries. For Saul to be conned would be bullshitting the bullshitter.

"You'll be hard pressed to skip these. Here, take a pebble."

Mike skips a stone and Saul follows his example, knowing how to do it himself after all. He’s fully lucid until he becomes too self-indulgent, reprocessing a memory of Matty dropping coins into a wishing fountain over and over. It occurs to him that while the river looks hollow and foggy from years of watching it, the strength of his memories can fill out its vague impression anyway. It could be a fountain, sure -- the image of Saul dispensing coins into it makes it convincing enough -- but out of the corner of his eye, it could be any river running through Vietnam. It could be a vein leading from here to Philadelphia. He wants to say that the quieter Saul is, the more they can appreciate the world outside their heads, but it looks further away each time something reminds him of Matty.

“You know that you can drown in this place? It can’t kill you, but you can still struggle to breathe. Not that I’d be aware either had I not been… um, under duress a fortnight ago.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

"Bare in mind that I’m telling you that information in confidence. Don’t make me regret being transparent with you.”

Mike looks at him very seriously for a moment. For all he is a little punk, Saul was someone’s kid once. There must’ve been a time where he was four years old, waddling across the beach shore kicking over sandcastles. He’s getting soft.

“If you need me, I'll be... well, there are only so many places I can be for all eternity, right?"

“Don’t get yourself into anymore trouble.”

*

He’s been used to Saul flitting in and out of Mike's space this past week, but by the eve of the last day he's gone longer than usual. It's clear how he invested that time when he comes back with a double barrel of bourbon.

"Last call for drinks before I take a long beach retirement from being your council! That means last call for wising up and accepting your very generous plea deal."

"You were gone long enough that I got my hopes up for Loyola's."

"Hey, whose proverbial last meal is it, huh? It'll stave off the cold that comes parse and parcel with being dead."

For two men of their stature, the boat feels more like being fit into an old shoebox, and even leaning back with most of his weight their ankles touch. Saul tried to offer him his own bottle to sip from, but Mike insisted on a glass.

The brown note of vanilla is its own river, and Mike feels himself phase backwards into his head. it draws him past images of him drinking tubs of the stuff in front of his son growing up. The oaky aftertaste and sting he had in his mouth after he shot Hoffman and Fensky. Wholesome icons of the syrup on his son's Mickey Mouse pancakes. He gave up smoking for Matty, but never the booze, and letting Matty sit and drink Roy Rogers’ with him while he drank hard alcohol feels more insidious in hindsight.

For all the emphasis being put in the change of scenery, this trip ends up reading like a court transcript: all talk, and terse action.

"Normally this is the point where I’d remind you to keep your eyes looking forward, but whatever it is you're thinking in there, I'm advising you to take it as a reminder of all you'll be giving up for a hundred years. Bourbon, having grandchildren, doing crosswords..."

"I'm not hiding any obols from you, so this is the end of the road for me. Unless you still take bribes. You could take my gun and smelt it down."

"Yeah," Saul scoffs, "for all five of dollars maybe."

"Then I'm all out of bargaining chips for you."

Their boat has been pulled down the entire length of the water's body, where the sides of the river part until it opens to the gaping center of a lake. The typography in the distance looks a faded, cursory sketch of itself. Unfortunately, he can't appreciate one image in peace for long.

"You remember the Hummel figurines?"

"I do."

"Good, because I'm gonna cut to the chase -- I prepared a plan of attack long before I came here. I have a source who can vouch, beyond mere speculation, that Fring has a coin he’s keeping to himself. I’ve all but drawn out a diagram to give you, complete with the pocket he’s holding it in! I can’t let you in on it unless you finally commit to not making the longest screw up you could ever make. A hundred years might seem easy now, but who’s to say you’ll still feel that way by year sixty?”

"I seem to recall turning down the Hummel job because you were doing it for the wrong reasons. I'm doing the same here, and I don’t appreciate the hard sell."

"Look, I’ve got a monthly quota to meet, and I'm already at risk of being burned for having stuck my neck out for you, so will you please just cut me some slack and make the easy choice and save both of our asses!?"

He seems to be sticking out his neck a lot for someone who supposedly needs payment up front, and Saul having supposedly being scammed enough times to possess a dozen counterfeits, when nary one so much as had an icon on it, suddenly seems like a bigger warning sign than it was at the time.

"Is fair to say I was wrong in believing you were Charon?"

"Yeah, I'm just the sucker who has to negotiate for poor schmucks like you. His beleaguered paralegal, if you will. You really think they'd dole out a rowboat to the likes of him? No, they save the yachts for the big guys."

He doesn't suppose he's any extension of Charon, either.

"But hey, if you wanna make up the difference for me..." Saul puts his hand behind Mike's ear and produces a golden pebble, the indent of a head pressed against the surface, and Mike looks at it more closely than Saul likely wanted him to. It’d be a convincing obol, had the face not been on backwards. "Woah-hey, looks like you were loaded the whole time! What do you say about drinks being on you tonight, huh?"

"For Christ's sake..." Mike wrenches back and splashes Saul. "Lemme outta here."

"Not a chance. For your insolence against Charon, you now owe me jackass tax. If you want off so bad, you can swim to shore."

Mike grips the edge of the boat and rocks them from side to side. "Jesus!" Saul has to negotiate between steeling himself and not dropping the booze. "I-- hey, I was joking! Stop!"

Saul parks the boat by the side of the river, and he trips on the way out and flips the boat over. Mike has to fish the bottle of bourbon from the water while Saul wrings out the sleeves of his pants. Seeing Saul sit there, with his head bowed and his arms propped up on his knees, almost makes his frustration sluice from his jaw down to his ankles. Mike offers his free hand to help him up, but Saul's consciousness dips into the same deep part of his brain that Mike's did a few minutes ago. Not a problem; they can have this conversation here.

"I've gotta say, I'm a little unimpressed -- you've lost your subtlety since you got here. You know that on the backside of an obol, the face is supposed to be pointing in the other direction?"

"I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. I’m a changed man -- rebaptized at our very own River Styx."

“Either you stop playing keep-away with what your game is, or I look for an outlet for my dissatisfaction over how you used Matty earlier. Is it really true what you said about drowning?”

Saul laughs; either he assumes he’s bluffing, or he’s gotten desensitized to threats of violence since he last saw him. "Yeah, because betraying my confidence the first time really affirms my faith in you not to snitch."

"I wouldn't have chosen the hard way, but it's your choice." Mike fists the back of Saul’s shirt. 

Saul anticipates the violence to meet his face, and blocks with his arm. "Hey, hey, hey, okay! Uncle! The floor is open for questions!"

“I knew you were up to something with those counterfeits. You care to tell me what?”

"I made a buncha those coins from pebbles -- which, I mean, you’ve gotta give credit to my perseverance -- and some of them were bound to be flubs. I was banking on me and you making like sardines to look for Gus in the boat, and with my sleight of hand and your powers of... persuasion, we'd swap his obol out for one of the good fakes. For what it's worth, I'm not completely heartless like Mr. Threatens His Only Remaining Company here. I was gonna flip you for who gets to keep it."

And there it is. The real reason Saul was still here instead of sipping mojitos in the Bahamas.

"And say what you will about my supposed ineptitude for the details, but those counterfeits paid for our drinks just now. Along with our crummy fifth class transportation. Some of these losers on the hierarchy of corporate afterlife are real suckers. I mean, where you throw in the towel, I say onward and upwards."

The detail sounds like a long story, and he's not gonna ask. Instead, he rewinds the conversation: "And you tried this on Gus first. That's why you were dragging your heels to get to me."

"That, and perfecting the art of a faux obol. Can you believe he had the golden ticket in his pocket and he just wasn't using it? I mean, there’s no way to tell time here, but I can attest that I must’ve tried for several months to wear him down. I realized since, well, you're the guy who knew the guy, you were the only one who could convince him..."

He has some nerve pulling this stunt on Mike when he could've wrung his neck for it, and Saul just keeps putting his foot in his mouth anyway. "I'm just saying, but you've got brawn and I've got the looks; why not make lots of money? You don't mind staying here, so who does it hurt if you just do me a favor instead?"

It’s not gonna happen, and they both let the idea hang itself. Instead his eyes flit back and forth, either processing that there's no onward and upwards from here or stalling for time. He can't see what Goodman's thinking, but he can feel memories bob in the air like street lights turning on one after the other.

"I screwed up with him just like you did..."

Is it just a last ditch effort to draw on his sympathy and change his mind? He's not sure, but whatever guilt he has over his brother he should learn to sit with.

"You might have. Are you willing to sit here for the next few decades without running from that?"

To Saul's credit, he actually thinks about it, but Mike knows Saul's answer as soon as he asks.

He raises a palm. "I solemnly swear to make your time here miserable."

"Believe me, I've earned that."

Mike's aware that Saul giving in is all lip service; he won't last twenty damn years before looking for someone else to rip off, and he'll hit wall after wall and never find the exit door he's looking for. But for at least one night out of however long they've got left, a series of quiet moments unspool between them: the cicadas chirp in time with the stars pulsing. The sun rises and the sky bleeds a salmon pink whipped with white and blue. These moments blurred together when he was sitting in vigil, but they stand out now.

It says something about both of their egos that it took them so long to shut up and notice these things together, but for the first time since Goodman got here, the world is allowed to speak for itself. The memories of Matty and Chuck die in peace with them.

*

**Author's Note:**

> NOT ENOUGH STICKERS.


End file.
